While we look at the Wallabies as a world of hurt for supporters, it is clear that we have created depth in our squad.
“Heart” and “attitude” are another topic, but the depth is there.
Watching club rugby over the past few weeks, as a result of poor scheduling, giving other codes a leg-up, it has been spectacular.
Last year, Sydney Rugby Union made a tough decision to remove the Penrith Emus, which was met was much derision and anger.
Looking at the Shute Shield this year, it is clearly a masterstroke.
Both the Hunter Wildfires and the Two Blues have been awesome for the competition. There were no guarantee wins and both sides pushed for the finals. What a good call in the end, given western Sydney is represented by Two Blues, West Harbour and Eastwood.
It is a heavily-backed area by Sydney Rugby Union and their current strength represents that.
The issue that is often raised on The Roar is that rugby doesn’t have depth for a third tier and that is absolute rubbish.
The rugby played in Shute Shield and the Hospital Cup in Queensland has been fantastic viewing and deserves a platform.
How that platform works is for greater minds than mine, but to say there is no depth in rugby in Australia is negative journalism.
An example of this is the NRL, with 16 teams and a 17th coming.
The top clubs have approximately 3-4 key players with players below that being the troopers and guys who can forge a career.
Of those approximately two clubs have the skills now, the salary cap will even it out.
Super Rugby Pacific is a great platform and I think it is certainly ‘a’ way forward, if everyone can get on the same page (but they won’t).
The inclusion of Fiji Drua and Moana Pasifika has been a massive draw card and it should be embraced.
The issue lies with eyeballs and how many people are watching.
Super Rugby, in its current form, simply doesn’t have any appeal anymore.
The introduction of the Pacific teams allows RA to get some compensation, but it isn’t solving the issue at hand.
(Photo by Jeremy Ng/Getty Images)
Club rugby has a big following. To the extent of Rugby League? No, but ask most people in the street and they go to their club games or watch them on Stan Sport.
Why don’t they go to Super Rugby?
Again, a question for bigger brains than my own.
When the NRL started, it was predominantly NSW-based and they introduced Queensland teams, which today only make up three sides, with the Dolphins debuting in 2023.
The top NRL teams fly, as the others cry out “we don’t have the depth”. Does this sound familiar?
Rugby Australia could do a lot worse than go it alone.
Perhaps an Australian Championship Competition, involving the top six from NSW and Queensland and two from Melbourne and WA with two from the ACT to balance it out.
Yes, the talent would be spread but so is the NRL, AFL, A-League etc…
Four stars in each team, a draft, what could be?
You have to build a foundation to create a building.
The foundation is built and has been established for over 100 years and despite the outside issues, the competition has stood the test of time across two states, and ACT and WA fast approaching.
How do you incorporate my Gordon without upsetting others, I don’t know.
You can’t merge 100 years of history?
Or can you?
The NRL did it…and it worked. How do you make it work in rugby?
But if the name is incorporated and it is the professional team and the team represents the region, maybe that’s it?
Get the name right!
Hamish McLennan, you may have a competition.
Look beyond trying to appease. Five teams won’t do it, nor will 10.
If you’re going to do it, go hard. Sixteen teams, home and away, stick with the territories and pick the right grounds.
In five years, you’ll have a competition, if you can grab the community.
Again, better minds than mine.
jeznez
Roar Guru
Coming to this very late but most Shute Shield clubs would average in the 250-450 range per match with a few big outlier games like Manly v Waringah and the GF being much larger. To give an example Randwick charge 20 dollars a ticket, had 10 home games (including one final). They take 80-90k a year in gate receipts. There will be life members, active players and corporate types separate but they average around 425 regular attendees per home game.
Jacko
Roar Rookie
I won't disagree with qny of that and im with you on the fact that SR needs to be q 22+ gqme comp. The RC and inbound tours makes that difficult but I wouldn't be upset if the SR comp adjusted to suit but how is the big question. I dont believe the wage bill would increase for playing extra games so its time to get better returns
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
Currently Wasps and Worcester are having financial issues due to crowd restrictions during Covid. For most teams getting over 10k a home game is important, big games (20k+) are about €1m turnover, €250k profit that pays for wages. Having home games is important but SR chooses to only have 7 one less than 2019 which means SR teams have less than before. SA teams on the other hand have 11 home games (all numbers exclude knockouts) which is 3 more than 2019, it doesn’t take a genius to do the financial maths. If a team has 10k hard core fans they will attend 3 extra games. Even if SR went to home and away they would get 11 home games and no new teams. Games make money because Brummies fans show up to see their team not the opposition. T14 has the highest club attendances and the most home games (14 just in league), if they halved the games they wouldn’t get double the attendance or double the profit and would lose on their commercial deals. Having 100% of the pie is better than 70% if 70% doesn’t pay the bills.
Micko
Roar Rookie
NZR will never accept a player draft, so more likely RA would go it alone.
Sterling
Guest
Any suggestion of involving clubs in a regular season national competition seems to completely ignore the effect it would have them and their local competitions. Regardless of the fact they are Premier Clubs exempt from relegation, they still run as regular clubs with several senior and colt grades playing localy and relying heavily on volenteers. If on the other hand, both QLD and NSW Premier Rugby were reduced to 8 teams each, then they could be used as two conferences of Australian Premier Rugby. Only meeting each other for the end of season semi's (1st BNE vs 2nd SYD and vice versa) then final. This would only require 3 teams traveling each season. Canberra, Perth and Melbourne would be welcome to move in the same direction and join in as well. But the whole thing would have to be goverened by Australian Premier Rugby, not the state bodies.
Bludger
Guest
Great reading. Out of curiosity, what is the average attendance of Shute Shield would you estimate? Are there a few clubs that average over 5000 or are all teams under 1000 type of competition? It would be interesting to know the tv audiences the sport gets. You could then get with a Twiggy, and some east coast entrepreneurs to recalibrate a national competition. I'm not keen on the travelling to NZ to play their domestic teams due to lowering the value of test match rugby. That should be exclusively international. In time we buy in NZ talent to fill in spots in our club teams.
Bludger
Guest
If there is a will there is a way. It has always surprised me that the Sydney rugby brigade, who like to see themselves as these born to rule above the rest of them types. But when it comes to organising a professional sporting league, they cannot match it with the blue collar types. As an outsider looking in, I find it odd that where the bulk of the support and playing base is from on have a team each in the pro league. Sydney metro area should have a minimum of three teams, in order to keep up interest and supply a game that followers of the sport can attend weekly. Alternatively, if the Sydney and Brisbane clubs don't step up then maybe forget about have a fully pro competition here and let players who want to pursue that go overseas to Japan and Europe. This happens in tennis, golf, motor racing, soccer etc.. Unfortunately Australia is a small economy and cannot support every niche out there.
Jacko
Roar Rookie
NZ has a domestic comp with a 14 team top tier and 12 team second tier already running and have had for 100 Years NH. It doesnt seem to have killed their standards before SR came in and it wont post SR. Sorry but how is NZ going into isolation anything to do with "teaching" RA a lesson????? RA is doing the threatening not NZR. As for your "they did it to SA" Bulldust thats complete garbage but keep up the BS if that helps you sleep at night.
Waxhead
Roar Rookie
hahaha Riggers Nothing I said is incompatible with supporting local teams. I've played for, coached, volunteered for and watched my local teams. Probably a lot more than you have :laughing: And I notice you've got no coment back on the substance of the issues I raised. So instead you've played the man instead of the issues.
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
NZ can have a domestic competition and I think they should with 6-8 teams. The problem is the financial implications. Without an inter-league Cup NZ can't sustain itself internally as financial support will not be there and few will watch it outside of NZ. Even in Covid with no URC, Prem, T14, Champs Cup it struggled to sell rights in Europe. Only France, England and Japan have domestic only competitions that their top players are employed in. I would happily see NZ go into isolation, so they can play with their equals but it would kill their standards. If Oz create a domestic league NZRU would be a fool to not have a crossover tournament, but as I said previously, I could see them go into isolation to treat RA a lesson. They tried to do the same to SA of how much they needed NZ but few would say it has worked.
Riggers
Roar Rookie
If you supported club rugby, as I do, there are loads of supporters from all teams who follow Union and League. They are all saying the base is strong and if it is promoted better, they will follow. But clearly you don’t. So enjoy being on the sidelines
Riggers
Roar Rookie
Surprise, surprise Waxhead. You obviously don’t enjoy rugby union and don’t bother supporting you’re local teams. Why do you bother following this site
kgbagent
Roar Rookie
Breaking news that may just scuttle the 'go it alone' idea https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/super-rugby/129662173/player-draft-back-in-super-rugby-spotlight-as-rugby-australias-wishlist-revealed
Micko
Roar Rookie
SR is a failure. That is the point!
Micko
Roar Rookie
Where is your evidence for the "poisoning"???
Noodles
Roar Rookie
DA: have a look at the squad.
John R
Roar Guru
What evidence do you have that NZR have/had ownership of the license for the Drua? It was/is owned by an entity called Counter Ruck Pte Ltd, which is controlled by the Fijian Rugby Union. NZR have veto power to grant that license, it doesn’t mean they own it. 51% of that controlling power will be transferred to the Fijian Government, by December of this year, once they’ve ponied up the cash. Their Principal sponsor is PacificAusSports - a vehicle of DFAT (AUS fedaral gov). NZ certainly aided with expertise and logistics to get them ready for Super Rugby, but to claim that they are aligned with NZ is false.
Jacko
Roar Rookie
NZRU should go it alone then NH. Nothing you say here makes any sense. You promote RA going it alone based on a whole lot of things then you try to tell me that NZR must join in and do whatever RA wants as they will have no choice. Sorry but they have just as much choice as RA does and Id say with NZR being in a way better financial position they have far more options. Its called ALONE..... Not alone but together still. I will be very happy for NZ to GO IT ALONE and turn their semi pro 14 team tier 1 domestic comp and their 12 team tier 2 domestic comp into a 14 team ( inc all SR players in it ) tier 1 domestic comp which would provide 26 matches plus finals or 13 matches plus finals. The teams are already in place NH and NZR has the money to retain all these players too which they are currently doing.
Jacko
Roar Rookie
NH you seem to think that its all up to RA to decide what the comp will look like. Its not, and no matter what thought patterns and dribble comes out I garrantee you NZR will look at the proposals with an intelligent perspective and assess the financials. Not one comment on here addreses the cost of any idea. Not one.
Jacko
Roar Rookie
CPM its him that negotiated and accepted the current deal.